Should disruptive IPs be sanctioned more harshly?[edit]

I notice there was a recent discussion calling for registration to be required to edit Wikipedia. While I'm against that, in my ten years as an editor I've seen many cases where an IP editor was highly disruptive and the IP was blocked for a limited time. The most recent (and disturbing) example is this: [1]. The IP was blocked for one week.

What, realistically, is the downside of a highly disruptive IP such as the above getting blocked permanently? How serious is the risk of collateral damage? I've had some conversations on Twitter where people believe the reticence to permanently block IPs is a serious weakness of Wikipedia and discouraging to editors who put in the hard work. Based on my experience, I tend to agree.

It seems to me that a policy of permanently blocking disruptive IPs would be a fine compromise between the current system and one that requires all editors to register. (This is not a proposal, just a call for discussion.)

-Jordgette [talk] 17:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Broadly support. I would agree that the current system is too lenient. We perma ban accounts far more readily, it appears, than we do IP editor. A vandalism only account is generally banned straight away – a vandalism only IP seems to be able to run amok for a fair while before they're banned for 24 hours. That said, I'd favour a 12 month exclusion over a permaban in most cases – just because the current resident of a property is a wiki vandal, it doesn't mean the next one will be. Domeditrix (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• I don't think so, IPs tend to have their edits rejected more often than accounts and a long-term block is more than sufficient to prevent issues. An indef could easily affect innocent users (who might become productive contributors and register) while the person who the block is aimed at can just move to a different IP. Reverting a dozen edits and blocking for a year or 2 isn't that difficult and most IP edits that are blatantly disruptive get noticed and reverted quickly. All the edits by 185.107.47.119 were reverted by Black Kite in the space of 3 minutes with rollback anyway, not that difficult. Its also pretty clear that the IP isn't a newbie since otherwise they probably wouldn't know about the notability tag. If blocked indefinitely they would likely just go to another IP. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• If it's an address assigned to a domestic connection, we can't really be sure how soon it will be re-assigned to an innocent party, and sometimes the culprit is a rogue user on a shared commercial or educational connection. Also, IP-hopping is a thing. Incidentally, if the proposed meta:IP_Editing:_Privacy_Enhancement_and_Abuse_Mitigation is implemented, you may not actually be able to see IP addresses at all. William Avery (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

It would be helpful to know how often someone tries to make a good-faith edit, and finds that their IP is blocked. If it's currently many times per hour, then obviously adding more lockouts would be unwarranted collateral damage. But if it's only a few times per year, or per month — keeping in mind that good-faith edits do not necessarily improve an article — then it would be worth discussing whether such collateral damage should be absorbed, in the interests of not discouraging editors who regularly do good work to improve the encyclopedia. If this data isn't available, ballpark figures could be arrived at (derived, for example, from the total number of IP addresses available to users of English Wikipedia, how many are available to someone who wants to IP-hop, etc.). Such a quantitative analysis would be more useful than the general ideal of preventing innocent IP editors from getting locked out, at all costs. Keep in mind that I'm looking at this as a compromise to requiring registration for all edits, which in the discussion above garnered significant support — the IP problem is that bad.-Jordgette [talk] 23:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Mandatory registration - This here Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Bidhan Singh is a great example, for why account registration should be mandatory. GoodDay (talk) 15:28, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• No Go read WP:IPBLENGTH and WP:NOTPUNITIVE. Wug·a·po·des​ 20:23, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I read them. The first is a guideline that dates back at least to 2008, and I'm asking if it's time to discuss updating that guideline. The second is irrelevant because this discussion is about preventing disruption, not punishing users. -Jordgette [talk]

• If you could give me assurance that this IP will always be used by this one person for the next 10 years, then I would be more than happy to block the IP address for the next 10 years. Unfortunately, the reason why IP blocks are frequently shorter than one week is because IP addresses get reassigned all the time such that the person using the IP address next week is not usually the same person as this week. This is why standard practice is to use gradually increasing blocks: if the same disruptive behavior continues on an IP after a block expires, we know with greater confidence that this is a static IP address that we can block for a longer period of time. For Special:Contributions/185.107.47.119, a red flag for me is how the IP was essentially dormant for years until suddenly it appears doing something as precocious as adding notability tags; it's not likely that this is the user's first IP, so they are probably hopping around on a lot of different IPs, hence blocking this one address for years is probably going to harm the next innocent user that gets reassigned to the address more than the user that the block is intended for. Mz7 (talk) 22:51, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

  Note that 185.107.44.0/22 is now colocationwebhost blocked for 3 years but as you can see the edit made last year was constructive anyway. In addition I'd say that the week long block was generous given all the edits were made in around 46 minutes (and nothing before). I'd personally have only blocked for 24 hours. Even if you knew the IP was going to be used by the same person for the next 10 years I still wouldn't block as long as that since what's to say there not going to do something productive one day. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:25, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• Broadly agreed with the above. When it becomes clear that an IP is long-term disruptive, such as engaging in similar disruptive behaviors after several shorter blocks, a long (though not indefinite) block is fine. But your average vandal or other jackass is probably on a dynamic IP, and by the time the block expires, they'll have a new address anyway. And if it's a sockmaster, well, we more or less know they're hopping IPs, because checkusers will be taking care of them as they come up. There's no utility (in fact, negative utility, given collateral damage) to blocking an IP indefinitely or for years when it will be assigned to someone else tomorrow or next week. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:08, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
• I do not believe it would be breaking the rules to say that collateral damage from rangeblocks and, much rarer, but still present, collateral damage from a changed blocked static IP, make up a substantial proportion of all OTRS tickets. The first set won't be changing much, but I'd rather not see a massive increase in the latter- especially since lots of individuals must be affected without writing to us. However, I'd be okay with a short but significant increase - e.g. minimum starter blocks of IPs for a week (if a registered account would be blocked for at least that long/indeffed). Nosebagbear (talk) 08:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
• The main problem is with shared IPs and how to exactly implement range blocks which leads us into the WP:PERENNIAL proposal to have mandatory registrationship which is quite a dead-end. Though I would broadly support harsher actions against offending IPs. Gotitbro (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
• Longer IP blocks don't help us unless we can find a way to persuade vandals to stick to the same IP address. Mandatory registration has the problem of losing us some good new editors and making vandalism slightly harder to spot as they have to create an account; As long as vandals do the minimum necessary to commit their vandalism while good new editors can be lost if we make things difficult for them, mandatory registration would do more harm than good. Where I think we could make a useful change would be to be a bit quicker with those 31 hour blocks on IP addresses that are only being used for vandalism. ϢereSpielChequers 01:34, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, explain the 31 hour thing to me. That's been one of the mysteries of this place that I've never been able to figure out. I get blocking somebody for a day. Or two days. Or a week. Or any round number like that. But 31 hours? What's up with 31 hours? -- RoySmith (talk) 01:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

User:Galobtter#31_hour_blocks Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:34, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

31 hours is chosen to be several hours over one day. The theory is that a vandal is often a bored person (say a kid at school) who is by a computer for a short period at about the same time each day. If you block them for 24 hours they might not even know because they are not affected when they next go to play. But 31 hours would catch them on the next day. Some people respond positively if they realize their disruption is noticed by real people and has consequences. And 48 hours might be unnecessary. Johnuniq (talk) 21:55, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• Just as the WMF was finally heavily defeated over their 7 year block of WP:ACPERM, there is no proof whatsoever that introducing longer blocks for IPs and/or registration for everyone will prevent people making serious edits. Most vandalism is 'one off'. By that I mean also the sprees that have to be stopped dead in their tracks. Otherwise, except for proven long term abuse from school and university networks , most longer blocks are ineffective. Most domestic IPs are dynamic, or vandals are using mobile devices and are located wherever heir boredom suddenly gets hold of them, and many of the IPs are VPNs. Filters are now able to revert a lot of vandalism but some of the more subtle kind, such as random date changes etc., fail to get the attention of patrollers. From the type of vandalism, it's fair to assume that most vandals are children, but some disruption/borderline vandalism requiring blocking comes from teenagers, young adults, and immature adults.

Whatever the 'founding principles' might have said once upon a time, as Wikipedia grows organically, so does the need for better control of it. The time will come sooner or later when mandatory registration will become inevitable - of the tens of millions of of editable or commentable websites out there, Wikipedia is the last one not to require registration. A growing number of other websites require not only registration but also a moderator's authorisation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia lower the resolution of fair use images?[edit]

Wikipedia lowers the resolution of fairuse images, which doesn't make any sence! This damages the images in a bad way, since users often want high quality images. Please Wikipedia, stop lowering the resolution of fair use images. --A fatal error has occurred (talk) 18:30, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation has required all their sites to minimize the use of non-free beyond what fair use would normally allow. This is in part set by the mediawiki software where the largest possible thumbnail that can be set by the user is 300px, and for the bulk of images that fall under non-free, this is sufficient. --Masem (t) 18:38, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

well, if we allowed images to be of super high quality, it wouldn't be fair use! The users wanting high quality images is irrelevant, as they are available with the copyright owner. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:47, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

That is not correct. WMF drafted sensible procedures for commercial images, and it makes some sense for them to be reduced to low-resolution so as not to impact the commercial opportunity to sell to people publishing books, who require a higher resolution. As Masem pointed out, this is sufficient for most, but not all, "non-free" images. In the case of non-commercial images, though, the reduction is pointless at best, as there are no commercial interests involved, and no valid reason to reduce the image in size, and following our "non-free" procedure makes no sense whatsoever. The worst case is for Creative Commons No-Derivative (CC-ND) images. These could be freely used, even commercially, but we deliberately create a derivative by reducing it, generating an actual and deliberate copyright violation, that is not fair use either, since we could conveniently use the image at full resolution without creating the reduced image. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:51, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

The act of reducing an image is not considered a new copyright (well established in copyright law, its a mechanical, non-creative conversion), and thus is not considered a new adaption for CC-ND, and thus does not violate that. See [2]. --Masem (t) 20:58, 7 December 2019 (UTC

Plus, there's no hard test for copyright. The WMF has (correctly) erred on the side of caution here. SportingFlyer T·C 06:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Is it a global WMF rule, though, or just a local enwiki policy? There are many projects that have their own policies about non-free content, and they are not all similar to enwiki's rules. For example, we host a lot of non-free images in the Finnish Wikipedia and we don't reduce the file sizes/image resolutions. -kyykaarme (talk) 11:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia call it non-free content if you can save the image to your computer for free?--A fatal error has occurred (talk) 18:31, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

We are not using "free" as in "no cost" but "free of intellectual property issues". The specific definition of "free" used by WMF is defined here but shortly, that means that any reuser of the image, including commercial ones, are unrestricted from reusing, modifying, and redistributing the "free" work with no strings attacted, outside the potential need to provide attribution. --Masem (t) 18:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Exactly. Nonetheless, both WMF and the community do use "free" as in "no cost", hence wmf:Wikipedia Zero and the reliance on donations instead of advertising or fees for use. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:24, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

The base rule set by the WMF that all wikis on the Foundation's servers follow is this Resolution. Each wiki must have some type of policy that shows how non-free images and other media satisfy that. It should be noted that historically, en.wiki already had a stricter non-free policy in place before this Resolution that needed to only be fine-tuned when it was passed. --Masem (t) 18:37, 8 December 2019

(edit conflict) It is a global WMF policy[3] that allows each project to have its own "Exemption Doctrine Policy". In our case that policy is Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria which is supplemented by a guideline Wikipedia:Non-free content. Some projects do not allow non-free use at all and others have a less strict policy than here. Despite the status of Wikipedia:Non-free content as a guideline, it is enforced with a rod of iron. Rarely would anything here be a breach of US Fair use and what dominates is WMF and ENWP policy. Thincat (talk) 18:50, 8 December 2019 (UTC)(UTC)

@Masem and Hawkeye7: The situation has changed somewhat since most of WP:IMAGERES was written, since many screens (particularly phones') now have pixel-doubled displays; MediaWiki now allows browsers to automatically choose between e.g. 300px, 450px and 600px thumbnails for a 600px image. I think it could be appropriate to increase the maximum pixel count to 400,000 or 500,000 pixels from the current 100,000 (or even further if there is consensus to do so), since it is most likely well within what Wikipedia would be allowed to do within the fair use doctrine; in fact, the pixel count may be completely irrelevant since the concept is not mentioned in the relevant legal texts. (Furthermore, the numerical image size limit is only part of the WP:NFC guideline, not the WP:NFCC policy.) Jc86035 (talk) 03:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Nope, that doesn't work. Again, the Foundation resolution is purposely more strict than fair-use allowances to encourage the use of free media over non-free. 100,000 px (roughly 300x300px) is a practical good size for 90% of the non-free we do host: screenshots from TV shows, films, and video games, film posters, and album/single artwork. Particularly for screenshots, 100k pixels is good for pre-HD screenshots, which would originally be at 640x480, half size of 320x240 is just under the 100k pixels. Increasing the pixel limit would let ppl use full size resolutions of these older works which is not acceptable at all.

And the minimize size is based directly from NFCC#3.

Keep in mind we do allow select non-free images over 100k if there is a good rationale to explain why the image must be shown at a resolution larger than that, such as for some art to show brush stroke or the like. But we want to keep images small to meet the Foundations goal for minimum nonfree use. --Masem (t) 04:28, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Masem: My understanding is the WP:IMAGERES is our guideline, which is purposely more strict than the Foundation policy. Is that correct? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:45, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The Resolution asks for minimizing non-free use to favor free images, but does not specify how. The size guideline is specific ours, and while it formed in part being tied to the 300px thumbnail limit, it was also based on considering the 640x480 resolution for many older media files, which is still 100% applicable. --Masem (t) 05:46, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The pixel-doubled displays mentioned earlier, and triple pixel displays such as Apple's Retina display, are designed to produce higher resolution images on smaller screens. Increasing the allowable size of free images to accommodate this seems contrary to the basic principle that these images should be low resolution. --John B123 (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Establish a policy to avoid using "conspiracy theory" terminology[edit]

Our NPOV policy, imo, conflicts with our use of the term "conspiracy theory" or "debunked conspiracy theory" in many of our articles which are not even about the alleged "conspiracy theory". In addition, with the new release of The Afghanistan Papers, we have one more of many examples of U.S. government lying to the public and then using the terms in question to discourage any critical thought about whatever is being labeled "conspiracy theory". Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I would say , if there are reliable sources to support "Conspiracy theory" then use them, otherwise keep them out. I wouldn't want to see the words "Conspiracy theory " not allowed to be used here, especially if reliable sources confirm it as such, or if it's common knowledge (like the "Flat Earth Society " or the " 9-11 was an inside job" crackpots!) Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:39, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

• We should be hesitant to use ANY label without very solid sources to support it... but when there are solid sources, we can (and should) use them. We reflect what the sources say. When in doubt, phrase the label as opinion (ie attribute in text) and don’t phrase it in Wikipedia’s voice as being fact. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

The majority of the times the term "conspiracy theory" is used it is misused and not describing a conspiracy theory at all. Instead it is mislabeling a concern as such in order to denigrate the concern. So use of the term should get a high level of scrutiny. I don't think that truly reliable sources apply the term very often. Basically the same thing that Blueboar said. North8000 (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Just wondering if this "misuse" has actually been counted up, or is it hyperbole? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:48, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Agree we should rarely if ever use "conspiracy theory" or "debunked conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice or as an ad hominem to describe and discredit other editors. Consider these two titles:

• Rid, Thomas (2019-12-05). "Who's Really to Blame for the 'Ukraine Did It' Conspiracy Theory?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
• "There's no evidence for Trump's Biden-Ukraine accusations. What really happened?". NBC News. Retrieved 2019-12-27.

The second article's title sounds far more like real journalism than the first, which sounds more like name-calling and advocacy. (Note: the second articles does have section title "Biden's response to Trump's Ukraine conspiracy theory".)

The problem with the phrase is really an ad hominem in that it conjures images of smoke-filled backroom deals with devilish spies, hitmen, gangsters, mafia and men in disguises. In reality, secret meetings are constantly taking place, out of site of the public with unknown actions to result, such as company board meetings, military meetings, and even such things like attorney-client privileged meetings, etc., and these are not called "conspiracies". The CIA indeed is constantly operating covertly, often to overthrown elected governments. United_States_involvement_in_regime_change.

What "conspiracy theory" usually means is an oft repeated claim that is unsubstantiated, difficult or impossible to prove, or has substantial evidence that contradicts it. It's better to call it simply that. What is unfortunate is that widely publicized conspiracy theories started by the govenrment, such as that Iraq had WMD's prior to the Iraq War has hardly ever been called a conspiracy theory, even though it clearly fits that definition. WMD conjecture in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Or the conspiracy theory regarding the sinking of the Maine as justification for the Spanish-American War: Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–American_War. Journalists are very selective about what they call a "conspiracy theory" and often it fits with propaganda of the party, government, or other business entities they are most closely affiliated with. Fox News reiterates claims by Republicans that any facts the Democrats try to establish for impeachment are "conspiracy theories." [4] --David Tornheim (talk) 00:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

There are conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Conspiracies seldom see the light of day, especially if they are successful (kind of like "Why doth treason never prosper,for if it does, none dare call it treason". So we can only refer to them as conspiracy theories, until per chance, somehow they see the light of day, but most assuredly conspiracies exist, and most especially in politics. Billionaires funding think tanks,senartors, congress critters and POtUS to advance causes and policies that are in their interest are conspiracies, and discussion of them is a theory.Oldperson (talk) 02:39, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Prostitute vs. sex worker[edit]

There have been many edits and discussion on the talk pages of various article over usage of "prostitute" or "sex worker". Much of the discussion on the talk pages has been repetitive between articles. To prevent continuation of this debate, a global policy on this issue would useful.

Sex work is a broader term, and also includes porn stars, pro dommes, sex therapists, strippers, phone-sex operators, camgirls etc. but is also at times when referring to prostitutes. There are those that have argued that sex worker should be used as prostitute is derogatory and stigmatised. Others have argued that prostitute can be confused with "prostituted women" and therefore implies forced prostitution. Taking an opposite stance, others have argued, in regard to child prostitution, that prostitution implies consent. Yet other editors, who are opposed to prostitution, view the use of sex worker as an attempt to legitimise prostitution so oppose it.

Context also plays a part. In the article sex worker, which deals with the broader sense of the the term, to change prostitute to sex worker would just cause confusion. In other articles, such as Prostitution in Australia, the terms are generally interchangeable. I have written several Prostitution in <country> articles and tend to use both terms dependant on that used by the source. For example UNAIDS is probably the most accurate source of prostitute numbers and uses the term sex worker so I tend to use sex worker for prostitute population side, but in regard to legislation, which almost always refers to prostitution/prostitutes, I use those terms.

The term sex worker was first coined by activist Carol Leigh in 1978, and has increased in use since then.

I would suggest that where sex work/sex worker could lead to ambiguity or potential confusion then prostitution/prostitute should be used. In articles about events or people prior to 1978, prostitution/prostitute should be used as the event/person predates the use of sex work/sex worker. In all other cases either is acceptable, but to prevent edit-wars, protracted debates over terminology etc, then similar rules to variants of the English language and date formats should apply, ie if prostitute is used in the article then it shouldn't be changed to sex worker and vice versa. --John B123 (talk) 01:08, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Generally speaking, and apologies for using this shortcut in particular but I'm making a point, the guideline which governs the use of terms which may imply value judgements is WP:TERRORIST, and in fact that style guideline mentions sexual perversions already. Not that prostitution or sex work are perversions necessarily but that's a good place to start. Probably you've already found that there's a spectrum of sources which refer to either prostitution or sex work that is evolving over time but that doesn't have a hard cut-off between one term or the other, and so the advice will probably turn out to be the same as for dealing with terrorist vs. freedom fighter: follow contemporaneous reliable sources as much as possible, or modern reliable sources if they're all that's available. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 01:18, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• This seems like something that should be worked out by consensus between editors. Or, perhaps, no such consensus will appear and individual editors will be free to make their own choices. Either way, it seems outside the scope of policy. Policy is how we run the project. Policy should not include editorial decisions. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:22, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with John B123 and the 1978 "cutoff" for not using sex worker. Aside from that I think could go by editors choices based on article context and sources used. A problem is when the terms are mixed in a single article and an editor comes along and makes all of the terms either one or the other then it causes problems especially where the sources term does not agree. I'm still not sure how or why sex-worker would be considered "advocacy" editing, but if it is, I do not agree with that either. Also I do not know exactly how we can determine between prostitute or sex worker specifically for the reasons that John B123 mentioned as far as human trafficking issues but I would tend to use "prostitute" as a verb there, and "sex worker" does seem to me to be more voluntary but I do not think that would be a reason to create a policy about use. TeeVeeed (talk) 10:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• • We should pay attention to the sources and not create a hard-and-fast rule. We should especially be careful about using "prostitute" in BLPs of people who don't identify with that term, because it's often seen as extremely derogatory. I don't agree with a rule that they shouldn't be changed: Wikipedia's disproportionately edited by Americans who have some unusual moralities around sex work compared to the rest of the world, and there's a bunch of articles that use "prostitute" that really probably shouldn't (again, especially BLPs). This even applies to the definition of "sex work": the notion of it as something substantially broader and unspecific when talking about what they would call prostitution (as JohnB123 suggested above) is a largely American concept that doesn't really apply internationally when the vast majority of organisations representing what they would call prostitutes internationally use the term sex work. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:05, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is going to be an area where just going off the general nature of sources is going to cause problems. If the subject is, say, European, and the majority of European sources say "Sex worker" but all the American sources say "Prostitute", thereby shifting the majority, do we go with them or the "local" media? Or a good case could be made for opting for what the subjects would/do call themselves. The problem with yielding it to page by page consensus is the usual one - it gives flexibility for individual article variation, but also gives completely different decisions being made for otherwise similar subjects depending on who the interested viewers are. I'm inclined to at least some lose guidelines being made, both on the points in my and in Drover's Wife's comments. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:51, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

re: “...but also gives completely different decisions being made for otherwise similar subjects”... Yes, that’s the intent. A decision reached at one article would have no bearing on the decision reached at another. Different articles are allowed to use different terminology. Blueboar (talk) 17:28, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see any great need for a general guideline on this. As the proposer says, "sex worker" is a broader term than "prostitute", this is, they are terms with different meanings. All prostitutes are sex workers but not all sex workers are prostitutes. I would disagree that either term says anything about whether they do the work voluntarily or are forced to do so: just as people in other professions, such as cockle-pickers or domestic servants, can do so either freely or as a slave, so can prostitutes and other sex workers. Can anyone point to any specific instances where there has been a problem that would have been avoided if we had had a specific guideline on this issue? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:47, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, see my comment below. No need to ping me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:51, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• Follow the sources, favoring those from the time frame (per WP:PRESENTISM) and region that the topic involves. If there's no clear preference in sources over the two in consensus discussions, "sex worker" should probably be preferred as the more neutral term. --Masem (t) 17:53, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it's not that clear cut as many see "sex worker" as a whitewashed term. ....see here for an explanation. That seen best we follow the sources per topic.--Moxy 🍁 20:29, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: John B123 brought the matter here after this discussion at Talk:Eastbound Strangler, where I pinged him, Kieronoldham, Neil S. Walker, and SMcCandlish, and suggested the matter be brought here. I was thinking of an RfC on the matter. Basically, what we have are editors, usually newbies (IPs and registered editors), going around changing every instance of "prostitute" to "sex worker." That can be seen with this and this account, for example. In the first instance, Kieronoldham, Neil S Walker, and I reverted. In that second instance, I did most of the reverting. I've stated the following times before: We do not use Wikipedia for advocacy. This is per WP:Advocacy. Prostitute and sex worker are not automatically synonyms. Sex worker is the broader term. And just like Wikipedia has not banned use of the wording "committed suicide" in favor of "died by suicide," and is unlikely to any time soon, Wikipedia has not banned the term prostitute. There is no need for editors to go around to Wikipedia articles replacing prostitute with sex worker, especially in historical cases. Here is an updated version of the "unlikely to any time soon" discussion. The "prostitute vs. sex worker" matter was also recently discussed at Talk:Prostitution.

One article where the "prostitute vs. sex worker" matter keeps coming up is Aileen Wuornos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where editors keep being reverted on the change. See, for example, this revert of an IP by EvergreenFir. EvergreenFir stated, "While I agree with the language change in general, the sources and the subject herself referred to it as prostitution and 'hooking.'" As for my comment about "no need," I understand that the matter is different when it comes to BLPs. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:51, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• Nothing wrong with the word prostitute (including after 1978; that's just a date under which it's an anachronism). We'd have a PoV problem if it said whore, but not prostitute. Sex worker is a modern neologism and euphemism, and is also too broad (porn stars, pro dommes, sex therapists, strippers [no, don't call them "exotic dancers"; they're not exotic in any sense of the word], phone-sex operators, camgirls and -guys, and various other occupations all also qualify under various definitions of sex worker). If this is coming up frequently, it should probably be discussed at WT:MOSWTW, though I suppose hashing it out at VPPOL will be good enough. This robotic changing of prostitute (and other terms, like callgirl, streetwalker) to sex worker is WP:NPOV and WP:MEATBOT failure, and needs to be stopped.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:01, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • If you call someone that you personally would call a "prostitute" that label in much of the world and they're feeling uncharitable, you're likely to get smacked in the face. Some of the other alternatives you defend ("streetwalker") are worse (perhaps skip the "uncharitable" in that case). Sex worker is the word that the vast amount of organisations across the entire world that represent people-you-would-call-prostitutes use for themselves, and the idea of it as this broad and unclear "neologism" is a substantially American thing that doesn't apply elsewhere. For the reasons I articulated above, there shouldn't be any hard-and-fast-rule, but these comments by Americans with a fetish for using and defending derogatory language towards women in the sex industry (and specifically opposing the language they generally use for themselves outside of the US) argue for rampant violation of WP:NPOV and need to stop. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

    Just a quick note: We don’t actually care what those who work in the field call themselves, what we care about is what reliable sources call them. This may or may not be the same terminology. Blueboar (talk) 21:43, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

    Those are not two different things. American users are sometimes surprised to find that reliable sources internationally have a different understanding than the one they've personally gained from watching Law & Order or reading tabloid newspapers. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

    The one organisation that I know of run by such people themselves for their own benefit is called the English Collective of Prostitutes, so at least some call themselves prostitutes. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:51, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

    This is exactly why I've advocated against hard-and-fast rules here: there are contexts in which different language will be acceptable, but knowing which to use generally requires some actual understanding of the specific subject being discussed. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

    This sounds very much like a euphemism treadmill. Anomie⚔ 14:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

    It's very convenient that the only things that aren't a "euphemism" in your book seem to be things that are generally considered slurs by the target population. Does this logic of yours also apply to other stigmatised groups? The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

    You seem to be resorting to ad hominem, and making unwarranted assumptions as to what "my book" might contain. Anomie⚔ 21:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• As the original poster above notes, in its original sense prostitution is a subset of "sex worker". It is the act of trading explicit sexual services for cash or other valuables. Being paid to have sex with another person while being recorded is not generally considered by most people as prostitution. Stripping (or dancing naked) in front of people is generally not considered prostitution. Being a cam girl id generally not considered prostitution. Being a professional dominatrix/dominator comes close to the line, but as long as there is no physical contact, let alone sexual contact, it feels like a stretch to call even that prostitution. (And I have read an article on Medium where a person hired a professional dominatrix to serve as a therapist: the person did not need psychological/psychiatric help, just someone who could enforce a reward/punishment structure in their life in order to get stuff done. IIRC, the dominatrix was dressed in street clothes with no sexual subtext.) While one could come up with cases that fall into a grey area -- e.g. if A pays B $50 to mop the floor in front of A because watching B do this sexually excites A, is this an act of prostitution even if A & B never touch? -- for the most part the rule should be to limit use of the word "prostitute" to paid acts of physical sex. At least IMHO. (It is worth noting that one reason "sex worker" is the preferred term is that "prostitution" tends to be applied to anyone who is wiling trade their ethics or morals in return for money -- most commonly, politicians. In other words, people who sell their bodies are offended at being compared to politicians. A remarkable situation.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Is it outing if a person tells a journalist their wiki account?[edit]

Sorry to reopen a closed discussion. This diff gives on possible way out of the situation. It's a bit too coy for me, but it doesn't out anybody or even link to any article, Since I'm on vacation I've "handed over" my Signpost Editor-in-chief duties to Bri. He can decide. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Bri and Smallbones, I assume you both are aware that the relevant edits were made in 2010 to 2012, right? This isn't current editing, it's historical. Risker (talk) 23:54, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Your diff has been oversighted, I think ☆ Bri (talk) 23:59, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

It has. Linking to the article is outing, full stop end of story. Primefac (talk) 00:11, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Risker and Bri: is there a statute of limitations on our "outing rules"? I do think that If a person gives their RL name to a reputable journalist to publish (and this a always checked by a reputable journalist) they don't have an expectation of privacy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:16, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

The current interpretation of policy is that they do enjoy protection by our outing rules. You’d be surprised the number of prominent Wikipedians who give interviews with journalists and then are aghast when it’s mentioned on-wiki. Doesn’t happen every day, but it happens. As Thyrduulf mentioned, unless the account mentions their RL identity on-wiki, we will suppress. We have this discussion a few times a year on the list and that’s always the outcome we arrive at. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• Note, the Harassment policy outlines the current consensus for what is acceptable and what is not in this manner. Like most things, policies can change as well. If anyone is interested in amending the policy, an RfC can be opened - but in the meantime expect our oversight team to enforce it. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:16, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

  I've started a discussion at WT:Harassment#Mainspace outing. – Levivich 18:09, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• I actually don't agree with Primefac's closure, anyway. Once a reliable source has made a fact known to the world, it is known to the world, and it cannot qualify as actual outing if someone on this site reads that source and sees those facts and judges the source reliable. That's pretty much all we do here, and is also where we get things like celebrities' real names, the real names of criminals who use aliases, and so on. If admins want to suppress such stuff, I suppose they can do so, but it's not outing, just something vaguely similar superficially but very different in the details. E.g., if you ID editor A as real person B von C on the basis of what someone claimed on a webboard, that's outing, because it's not a reliable source.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:V vs WP:NOR[edit]

Hi,

Consider the 2019 Hong Kong protests. There are many well written, extensively sourced, detailed paragraphs; for example the "Moderate Group" section. The thing is, while each statement may be sourced, they're all different sources which leaves me thinking that the overall narrative is "original research". Someone could construct whatever picture they want from bits and pieces of secondary sources. Am I off base here? Is this what what WP:NPOV is for instead? I'm not asking for judgement on that article just that as a regular at ITN I see it a lot and am looking for guidance on how it should be evaluated especially when we can have articles in the box for months.

Thanks

--LaserLegs (talk) 20:24, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem with that article is that nearly all of the sources are primary rather than secondary, as any historian or social scientist would tell you that news reports are. If people would just wait until secondary, academic, sources appear on which to base an article then we could get something worthy of an encyclopedia. But, then again, pigs might fly. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

When would a WP:NEWSORG be primary or secondary? The policy mentions op-eds as primary. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:49, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Article Hijacked[edit]

Azhar Abbas had been hijacked. I don't really know where the best place to report this is. Article was about a 'notable' cricketer and is now about an alleged buisnessman. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slywriter (talk • contribs) 16:28, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Reverted. The cricketeer is not exactly a paragon of notability, but the businessman seems not to qualify at all. You are well within your rights to just undo this kind of thing when you encounter it. If there is a need for another article for a person of the same name, then using qualifiers & hatnotes (as already demonstrated in the article) is the way to go. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:35, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Association football logos[edit]

Hi! Some users are uploading logos of football teams to commons saying that they are to simple. Logos should not be uploaded to commons. Some examples: FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and FC Viktoria Köln. See this Wikipedia:Non-free content. I think the images uploaded local should stay and those at commons should be deleted. --MSClaudiu (talk) 11:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

This should really be raised at Commons rather than here. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

There is a concept of threshold of originality in that logos of simple design are ineligible for copyright. However, where the threshold is varied country to country. The U.S. Has a very lax one that most of the linked examples would fail to meet and thus be public domain. While in a common law country like the UK the threshold is very low, only needing "sweat of the brow" to be eligible. I suspect most of these fall into this case and being uploaded to commons is not correct. --Masem (t) 13:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

How can you determine which logo can be uploaded to commons and which logo remains local then?--MSClaudiu (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Once again, that question should really be asked at Commons. We have no authority here to decide what they will or will not accept. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:54, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The policy page at Commons is here. As far as enwiki is concerned, it isn't really a problem for us as articles about football clubs include the logo under fair use on the main article even if it isn't free (though it would be an issue if they were also used on sub-articles, such as seasons). Looking at the examples given, Borussia Dortmund is clearly well below the bar of originality, as is FC Viktoria Köln. FC Bayern Munich - borderline; Inter Milan I would say should be non-free. But they're just my opinions. Black Kite (talk) 19:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that they are replacing the logos here with fair use with the ones from Commons, and then the logos are deleted, and the article remains without a logo. And in a way is about en.wiki because the main thing they do is to replace the logos on the wikipdia article of the company.--MSClaudiu (talk) 15:17, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Newly added content that has been challenged by multiple editors[edit]

Wikiproject content advice titled "guideline" but marked as "essay" for over a decade[edit]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines clearly has the word "guideline" in the title and is referred to as a guideline by the Wikiproject. However, it has also had the essay template at the top of the article for over a decade. These two things appear to be contradictory and in need of resolution. The easy thing to do would be to propose it as a formally accepted guideline; it appears to have been stable for quite some time so it may fly through that process quite easily. But I have no experience in that area so I'd appreciate suggestions from editors experienced in area of Wikipedia policy and guidelines! ElKevbo (talk) 01:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

The above request is premature. WP:WPSCH is a large and important project. The OP has not extended the courtesy to the project coordinators and members for a full discussion there before staring something here for input from the broader community. That said, VP 'Policy' would not be the right venue either. Please see WT:WPSCH/AGKudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I opened a discussion in the Talk page in question nearly a month ago. ElKevbo (talk) 02:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps, ElKevbo, it would have been more appropriate to mention it on the main project talk page at WT:WPSCH if in your opinion the issue is so nefarious that it now requires a drastic intervention by the entire Wikipedia community. As you have pointed out several times, the Schools Project advice page has been around a long time (12 years if I remember correctly) and no one else has seen fit to cause a kerfuffle over it. IMO, there are more important issues to be addressed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

You're really blowing this out of proportion. Moving the page or retitling is not a big deal. Neither is asking the larger Wikipedia community if they accept this as a guideline. ElKevbo (talk) 03:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, it's also not a big deal not to. You may want to look into other project created content guidelines. The vast majority are the exact same status as SCH/AG. John from Idegon (talk) 03:24, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Joy pointed out this problem for the Wikiproject Universities article advice about five years ago (not so much "pointed out" as "marked the article as an essay without discussing with anyone because it was the correct thing to do") and neither that project nor our college and university articles have fallen into chaos. If we have other pages with titles and templates that conflict then those should be fixed, too. ElKevbo (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

We should be very careful not to display essays as if they were guidelines. It's very clear it's currently an essay, so it either needs consensus for being policy, or to be more to a less ambiguous title. Personally, I think the title should be changed regardless, as if it became policy, it should come under Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Schools or similar, would it not? The current title doesn't seem right. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, it's one of many Wikipedia:WikiProject advice pages. There are about 180 such pages with misleading names. The thing is, most of them were created back in the day, before the WP:PROPOSAL process had been invented (for WP:MEDMOS), much less written down (which was in 2008, about a year after WikiProject Schools created its advice page). Back in the early days, all you needed to do to make a page be a "guideline" or a policy was to slap a template on it. We probably should discuss a mass page move at WP:MFD (no point in singling out just one WikiProject), and they should all have the {{WikiProject advice}} templates on them regardless of their titles, but I wouldn't want anyone to think there was anything more nefarious than inertia going on here.

I also wouldn't want anyone to think that WPSCHOOLS is a large WikiProject with a lot of resources and extra energy to expend on what at least one of its participants considers a fairly minor detail. Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Schools lists 13 regular contributors (including you) to its discussion page during the last three months. That's a middling-to-small WP:WikiProject with a fairly large subject area to cover, and they might easily miss something. The larger groups, like WPMED (92 regular participants on its talk page) or MILHIST (116 regular participants) or WPVG (84 regular participants), would have had far less excuse for not responding to the talk (sub-)page message that you posted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Surprised nobody has linked it already, but the relevant part of Wikipedia policy—and a policy that's been explicitly affirmed both by community consensus and by Arbcom ruling, not just something that someone slipped into the policy page—is "WikiProject advice pages, how-to and information pages, and template documentation pages have not formally been approved by the community through the policy and guideline proposal process, thus have no more status than an essay". An individual WikiProject can call its internal guides "guidelines", "policy" or "immutable commandments", but unless they can be demonstrated to have the consensus of the full community and not just the consensus of the members of that project, they have the status of personal essays and are just treated as an expression of their authors' personal opinions. ‑ Iridescent 07:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Birthplace, nationality, and citizenship bio infobox parameters with matching values[edit]

FYI: Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see WT:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC on birthplace, nationality, and citizenship parameters with matching values, an RfC opened after initial discussion fizzled out with too few participants. Pointer listed here since the answer could affect a large number of articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Should WP:AUTO allow BLP subjects immediate and final say on their religious beliefs?[edit]

Please see Wikipedia talk:Autobiography#WP:CAT/R disagrees that "details of your religious beliefs...may not be verifiable". I'm proposing that BLP subjects should be able to insert, update, or correct their religious beliefs, because of their wholly personal nature, just as we allow them to "correct unambiguous errors of fact." EllenCT (talk) 13:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)